Reflections in the Neutral
by Tebbers
Summary: Newest in the Featherfanon arc.  Mostly Left 4 Dead.  Aisling is marking time, until the next pawn comes into play.  Until then, she's got a pack of hunters extracted from quarantine to deal with and computer upgrades that never seem to go off right.
1. Chapter 1

a/n Complete Story. Featherfanon aside of Aisling's dealings with her platoon of hunters. Backstory abounds. Check my other stories for explanations, and my profile for proper chronology.

Random aside inspired by Thrice's Digital Sea. Hunters are Valve's. Any with names are mine. Aisling is mine. I curse Camarlengo from DeviantArt.

Chapter 1

Errors spewed across her vision, heralding the coming of getting dumped out of the computer. Aisling tried to close things down and make the exit a little more smooth, but another explosion of errors hazed her vision white. She blinked her eyes open, seeing the outside world, rather than the virtual construct of the computer, not surprised to see two of the familiar men assaulting the diving rig connecting her to computer. It was Nole and Kevin, and judging by the noises they were making, they were quite alarmed. No talk. No speaking. They were incapable, thanks in great part to a host of mutations from a viral infection they'd suffered just last year. The sounds they made instead were hardly human, and not exactly animalistic either. Growls and groans as they shook her where she was wired into the computer. She blinked the dump shock out of her system, trying to force her eyes to focus. They complied, somewhat, and she took in the state of her friends. They were riddled with bullet holes, and covered with blood that shifted apart from gravity, forming thin, red and black tendrils that snaked back up to their wounds. She looked beyond them, to the sterile environment that was not her home, and the reinforced door that had been messily removed from the frame. Armed soldiers rounded the corner, screaming their own cries of confusion and orders that hazed to a dull roar in her ears.

She blinked the image clear. Altaïr sat across the narrow sleeping berth of their transport, watching her. Her view moved from her body, showing the berth from above, and her own body now sitting up to face Altaïr.

That image slid from her eyes as well, to be replaced with another out of body view of her own bedroom, the diving rig in the corner, her body wired into it. A keening howl filled the room, and water was flooding out from beneath the computer, sending two of the three in the room into a panicked flurry of motion.

That image snapped away from her as she started to turn it over in her mind, replaced by darkness and physical sensations only. She forced herself to sit, blinking and trying to find any vision at all. She was on her bed, judging by the texture of the fabric beneath her, and the room was quiet. Something pulled strangely at her arm, and after a brief examination, she found that she was wearing a sling on her left arm. She prodded at herself to find the source of this bandaging, getting a quick protest from her shoulder to answer her curiosity. She blinked a few more times, still seeing nothing. A cold hand lightly brushed her cheek. She froze, not having heard the movement, or felt the proximity of someone else. Judging by the silence of their movements, and the temperature of their skin, it was probably one of her rather mute and infected friends. The fingers splayed to cup her cheek, and a thumb ran across her eye. By that action, it had to be Chad, but that thought was secondary to the sensation her eye had at the touch. It moved how it shouldn't have been able. Shifted with more freedom than it should've had. She blinked again and realized that her eyes were gone. Warm metal brushed against her free hand, and she felt the texture of the circuits on the surface. It was one of the old relics. The pieces of Eden. It flared to life immediately, filling her nonexistent vision with gold.

She shook her head again, harder this time and opened her eyes again, now seeing the diving rig in her bedroom. She was sitting in the floor before it, tools spread around her. This was where she'd last left her mind. Why had it wandered to those futures? And why hadn't she seen much of them before? She made the mental note to look into those flashes again. They weren't connected to anything she'd planned thus far. She would have to get the computer working again before she could get a really decent look. She's spent the better part of the day making modifications to her diving rig, and now brushed aside her curly snarl of red hair and surveyed the machine. It was a pretty clean beast for being cobbled together from a range of entry level and enterprise quality parts and pieces. A triangular base in a wide stance supported a long arm that arced back into the wall. This arm had a harness with a multitude of smaller connections and two smaller, curved struts topped with small keypads and touchscreens jutted out just above waist level to serve as arm rests and manual input. A flat disc about thirteen centimeters thick hung off the front of the arc, well above head level and centered between the input arms. Its connection to the main support arm was thick both to be load bearing and to house the plethora of cables wired into the cranial connection array. Two small padded braces looped beneath the array, mainly to stabilize the user's head. The newest addition was the direct neural interface band, a flexible strip that articulated out from the support arm to lay flush with the user's back and wire into preinstalled ports along the spine. Aisling scratched her head again. The implants of the ports were still itchy, and pulled at her skin, but she was excited to test it out. The test dives she'd done back at GADA were easy enough, but they just didn't have the programs like she had on her own rig. Didn't have the pieces of Eden, so it was more of an interface test. They'd expressed some concern over the interface with non-rig vetted programs, but she'd waved it off. What was the worst that could happen? She'd looked into it, and it was likely that she was going to get locked inside the program, but she couldn't figure out exactly how to set it up to prevent it. She'd also not looked very far into it. It would be too time consuming, and though getting dumped out of the program by being manually disconnected would be uncomfortable to say the least, it was faster to just test than try to predict what small setting she'd likely overlooked, though the chances were equal that this would all go off without a hitch. So if it all went awry, apparently Kevin would drag her out of the rig, if that was as close as that future had been, and then she'd spend the time to figure out the settings, or enlist some help from GADA.

_Is ready?_ The somewhat eager voice pried into her mind again. She turned to look over her shoulder to the source. Chad was still laying across the bed, one leg dangling freely off the end while the empty sockets of his eyes stared toward the darkness of the ceiling. She looked down at the flickering golden rectangle dangling from the chain on her hip. It was same piece of Eden he'd given her in the vision bare seconds earlier. It was a bit of lost technology they'd never really been able to understand well enough to replicate, but well enough to use. This one allowed mind reading and she'd tuned into its abilities quickly with dealing with the pack of infected individuals she'd collected. It was easier to read their minds than to try to decipher the growls and hisses they made, if that was even speech at all. She doubted that it was. The virus had also laid waste to most of their higher cognition. They functioned well enough, and understood basic instruction. Their strain of the virus mutated them in particular, repeated patterns in multiple individuals. The same vocal mutations. The same muscular changes. Others suffering different strains of the infection mutated in vastly different ways. This strain was colloquially called Hunters, and this particular hunter tended to stay close to her, and constantly bother her in one way or another, sometimes heckling her for being short, though at almost 158 centimeters, she didn't feel particularly short, though he had a good thirty centimeters on her. Most other times, he simply fawned over her in spite of whatever annoyance or indifference she tried to use to thwart him.

"Yeah." She smiled brightly at him, knowing that the general hum of noise in the room was enough for his ever-unsettling biosonar to allow him to see the smile. He had no eyes, by his own design, repeatedly, as they continued to attempt to regenerate due to a second viral infection that had seemingly stabilized the first and removed a lot of the aggression that was trademark of the hunters. He heard well enough to see, and 'saw' well enough to discern facial expressions and fine movements whether his face was aimed her way or not.

_Is safe?_ The question came with him picking up his head. The hood of his sweatshirt that usually obscured most of his face falling back, fully revealing his dark hair and thin face, which was pulled into a worried grimace. Her smile faded, and his frown deepened. He shook his head. _Shouldn't do.._ He warned.

"But I need it." She said.

_Get sleeper awake?_ Chad sat up fully, pulling the dark green hood back up into place and hiding the mangled mess that had been his eyes.

She turned around to face the rig again and stretched her back. "I don't want to wake up Altaïr. He shouldn't wake up yet. How about I test it? I've still got the old interface. You want to try it first?" It was a good idea, and her mind was already flickering the future again, this time directed at the task at hand. Chad wasn't going to have anything to do with it but to watch. Helden was going to jump at this opportunity, and all she needed to do was set the projection to something reflective. Perhaps what had aptly been called the Neutral. It was a light program that created settings from the mind of the initial user of each session. No real interface with any other programs, so nothing should hang up unless it was the connections themselves. She'd had to tinker with a lot of settings for the new implants, but except for being slower, the older epidermal connections should be fine for a quick test of settings, and she had a few of the halos still around.

He dipped his head, hiding his face in the shadows of the hood. _Can't leave._

She smiled. About the answer she'd seen just a second ago. She rolled to her feet, ruffling the hood and his hair beneath it. "Fine. I'll see if anybody else wants to do it."

_Brent?_ Chad asked. The piece of Eden worked one way, unless she tried to send out her thoughts. There were other relics better suited for telepathy than this one, and none of the hunters had thus far managed to figure out the thought process of actually utilizing the relic's capabilities. She was suspecting some sort of empathy connecting them anyway, but hadn't had time to prove it yet.

She shrugged. "Maybe." None of them had really grasped what her abilities were with temporal clairvoyance. Seeing the future, basically. Most had grasped her odd resetting attribute, that her body would reset to a very previous point of health upon her death. The reset usually took a few days, unless something hindered the resurrection. Some of the other hunters had capitalized on this, practicing their not often used lethality on her, much to Chad's rage. She didn't fault them for it. Sometimes it was humorous at the complete blindside of it. Sometimes it was most direly irritating, as she was usually in the middle of something. There were no grudges. The murders were always quick, though briefly painful. When she made it to the door, Chad stood and followed her out through the living area and outside of the small, round, stone house. More of a yurt, actually. She paused there, glancing over her shoulder at him. "You mind?" She asked before covering her ears. He took the hint, and belted a high pitched, chalkboard-worthy scream that set her teeth on edge through her hands and whatever other insulation she tried.

_Sorry._ He said, closing the gap between them and wrapping her up in a playfully crushing hug.

"Off." She said, wriggling an arm free to elbow him in the face. He dropped her back onto the ground, a sharp smile still on his face despite the assault. She rolled her eyes, and turned to see that Xun was already there, as well as Milo, and Helden had rolled off the roof, landing hard on all fours beside her. What he'd been doing up there, she didn't want to know. She smiled at the small group that had responded so quickly. "Who wants to play with the computer?" She asked the group in general.

_Play?_ Xun asked in his thin mental voice. His voice matched his build. He was a small, lightly built hunter of distinct oriental origin. He was the fastest of their group, second only to Milo, who Ailsing jokingly called Jesus for his short brown hair and beard.

_Bo-ring!_ Helden chimed into her head, and Milo said nothing. A few other hunters had approached from the garage where they took refuge from the warmer summer sun of the highlands in Colorado.

"Testing the new virtual reality on the computer. Diving." She explained, ignoring Helden's lack of interest, and simplifying the concept for them.

_Oh. No.._ Xun thought slowly, his interest ebbing.

Rai rounded the corner of the house. _Why test?_ He asked, hands in the pockets of his pale blue jacket, crescent of the hood sitting low enough on his face to even hide his nose. He was one of the other hunters that actually stayed around her for any length of time. He'd been the only one to actually infect her with their altered strain of the virus, which was considerably more difficult to spread now than the original strain that caused the worldwide epidemic.

"It's new." She turned to him, jerking a thumb at Chad. "And somebody thinks it might be dangerous."

Suddenly, there was a light weight on her shoulder, she turned her head enough to bring Helden's scarred left cheek into her periphery. He'd propped his chin on her shoulder, a suddenly very interested and impish grin on his face. _Dangerous ain't boring._ He thought by way of retraction of his previous statement.

"Looks like I have a volunteer." She said, returning his smile.

_Yah! Do this!_ He thought excitedly, straightening up and pounding one fist into his other hand before grabbing one of her arms and dragging her back inside.

Chad followed, and Rai cocked his head in the semblance of an eyeroll. _Coming too. Sounds crazy._ He said, following as well. Xun and Milo were hesitant to come in, instead turning to the other hunters that were coming out of the woods and starting a game of tag. Full contact tag, with no base and often loss of consciousness or blood marking loss.

"Alright. Let's get you hooked up to this thing." Aisling said, pushing Helden to sit by the diving rig and grabbing the shoulders of his dark green hoodie and yanking. He shifted to help her remove it. She tossed it aside, taking in the swath of burn scars up his left side, the various smaller scars from abrasions all along his right abdomen, and the trio of gunshots to his right shoulder. There were plenty of them, but none that weren't there last time. They all rose from the surface of sickly gray skin, puckered or gnarled in patternless motions, a slightly healthy pink tint to them. "You need to quit hurting yourself."

He frowned up at her a bare moment before breaking into a humored grin and pointing to the scars from the shotgun slugs. _Newest. Your fault._

She rolled her eyes, remembering that incident. He'd been a solid two meters behind her when those shots had fired, and yet still dove over, around or somehow in front of her before the slugs got there. "I would've been fine."

_Been your face!_ He countered, jabbing a finger at her.

"So what else is new? I would've come back." She was still a little surprised at how willing he was to set up whatever high flying, near miss, fast moving or burning stunt came into his warped little brain, yet resistant to anyone else taking any part in them. Judging by the marks he carried from said stunts, he probably was hesitant to share the badges, or the recovery time required to get them. She had serious doubts that even half those scars came from post infection. Most infected individuals were more easily wounded. Their skin and bone structure having deteriorated to the point that even a baseball bat could be lethal in a single swing. Hunters and other more specialized infected were a little more durable, but not incredibly. Not even a hunter could just survive some of the wounds required to cover him with those scars without serious medical attention.

_Too slow._ He said with an audible snort, apparently referring to the handful of days required for her to reset, though it also reflected on his very short attention span as well.

She threw her hands up. "Fine, whatever. Let's just get you hooked up."

_You started.._ He grumbled as she moved past him to get the halos hooked up to the computer.

"Whatever." She said loudly, detangling the cords from the machine where she'd tossed it before leaving to get the ports installed a week ago. She'd hoped she wouldn't be using this again, but it was a small consolation that she wasn't using it on herself. Turning back to Helden, who was scratching at the bullet scars. "Stop."

_Itchy!_ He growled and took a swipe at her legs. She hopped over the halfhearted attack, though she heard both Chad and Rai growl from behind her. Ignoring her would be defenders, she pushed his white hair out of his face and looped the top halo of the harness around Helden's head, cinching it tight. iOw! Hey! Too tight!/i Helden made a sound suspiciously like a whine and tried to tug at the halo. She smacked his hand away and loosened it up before aligning up the electrodes on his head, again trying to move his hair. She was going to have to attack him with the clippers again. He'd avoided her last time she'd tried to get all their heads mowed. Mowing was how she referenced it. They weren't big fans of the whole ordeal. A couple of them had lost all their hair, and she was okay with that. Apparently Helden and one of the others had been stricken with a similar disease, but instead of losing all their hair, they just lost the hair that had color leaving them white headed as old men. She still needed to look into that. Pushing more of his hair out of the way on the sides of his head, she adjusted each side of the halo. Once that was set, she pushed him to lean forward, and aligned the electrodes on his back before cinching the second halo around his chest, not so tight this time.

"Okay? Feels good?" She asked, straightening up and pushing him to lean back again.

He tilted his face up to her, empty sockets open and blinking, mouth hanging open in the picture of bemusement. _Feels.. good._ He echoed, though the confusion was evident in his mind.

She laughed and pulled one of the touchscreens off the side struts of the rig, flicking on the screen and checking the connections. "I'll check for you."

_Thanks._ He crossed his legs, leaning his elbows on his knees and waiting.

Things lit up all green, and Aisling checked the interface coding. It was a long file, and everything looked right. Images flickered across her mind. Helden coming out of the dive still laughing. Nole yanking her out of the rig. Nole? Where was he? She hadn't gotten two words out of him except to flip her off and give her mental static every time she got near him. Water. Open water. A scuba regulator. A jolt of electricity sending everything black. The hazy partial code of something she couldn't identify moving by slowly in a blue field. The jarring yank of the diving rig attaching itself to her ports. She shook the images clear. This was one of those tipping points. Because of her likely workable but not efficiently coded work on the computer, it was a tossup which way the future would go. A lot of events had pretty clear paths, some were hazy and needed auxiliary plans. This one was one of those. Helden was the auxiliary, and so were Rai and Chad. "You look good. Ready?" He grinned and shot her a thumbs up. She nodded and forced the connect. His head dropped forward, though he didn't fall, apparently propped well enough on himself.

_What happened?_ She looked up at Rai when he asked.

"I put him into the computer." Aisling said.

_But, right there._ He pointed.

"Like a dream." She explained. "Like I use the computer."

_He can?_ Rai folded his arms, only mildly confused at this.

"Yeah. You can too if you want." She said, watching the screen. Judging by the files accessed, he really was dreaming. The ocean. Water. The images flickered across her mind again.

The jolt of the cold water jarred his eyes open. Instinctively, he clamped them shut upon actually having some sort of feedback of sight, but the usual screaming haze of vision was absent, as was any useful sound for him to hear what was around. So after a moment, he opened them again. Warmer colored brown eyes took in the surroundings. The sun was streaming through the surface of the water. Maybe the water didn't carry sound properly? When had his eyes come back? Was this really the computer? He looked around. The blue was darkening. He was sinking, but his lungs weren't burning for air yet. Something of the water was so familiar, but he couldn't place it. It was calming. Soothing. Something else was sinking in the water, but even squinting he couldn't make out the shape, so he moved toward it, finding it to be a tank. A very familiar tank, with knobs and dials, and a hose. At the end of the hose, he found a face mask, and pulled it on, expecting there to be air inside, but there was none, and though his lungs weren't bothered by his not breathing, his hands remembered the knobs of the tank, turning them and making adjustments until air began to flow, purging the water from the mask, and his lungs. When had he breathed in water?

A splash of changes spread across the screen, and Aisling tried to change them back, but errors blocked her. "What the hell? How did you lock me out?" She turned to Helden, focusing her mind on the piece of Eden. "Don't touch anything in there!" She snarled.

He jerked at the sudden noise. Aisling? Yelling? How could he not turn on the air from the tank. Did she expect him to drown? Behind the mask, he answered without thinking. "Need to breathe." The voice was alien to his ears, smoother than the usual growls that came from his throat. Closer to the sounds that the sleeper in the basement made. He held the tank to his chest, as it didn't have any straps to tie onto him.

"You're in a computer! You don't need to breathe! Set whatever you changed back!" Aisling said again, her voice becoming tight.

"O-okay." He said in that strange sound that must be his voice, and looked down to see that the tank was gone. The mask was still on his face, but the tube coming from it moved downward into the dark blue below. "I.. I can't. I change is gone."

"Aw, crap!" Aisling moaned. "Here the rig works fine, and he locked me out!" With an irritated grimace, she shot Chad a thumbs up as she jammed the touchscreen back into the right side strut. "Well, it works. Now I'm going to go in, deal with the internal controls, and kick him out of it!" She pulled the piece of Eden off her hip and tossed it to Chad. "They told me no Eden connections through me. I don't have time to hook it up to the rig." She stepped between the side struts of the machine, pulling the connection array and locking the brace around her head. The machine began to move on its own then, the new band arcing out from the brace until it met her back, and a series of whining buzzes that snapped to a stop as the wires drilled their way into the connections of her back. She grunted at the snaps, but held out a hand when the other two hunters stood. "It's fine. It's normal. I'll be back in a sec." And she closed her eyes.

Helden snapped his head up toward the bright light that had just filled the sky, bleaching it white. A small bit of dark blotted the light, and grew larger. He pulled himself toward the surface, straining to see what it was. The shape was vaguely human, though surrounded by an irregular starburst. He hesitated beneath the surface, held back both by the tether tied to his face, and the fear of the sounds that no doubt filled the air above the surface. He was rather enjoying sight again, or rather, sight without blinding agony. The figure descended from above, an echoing voice preceding it. "Helden, what the hell?" It was Aisling, and her voice was as clear as if he were above water, and the sound didn't pain him in the least. She came closer to the surface, and he finally saw her. It was her face, and her loud hair, which he hadn't expected to be red, or cut as short as it was, but her body was too long and too thin, the limbs disproportionate. A mass of flesh stretched out from her back to the sky, as far as he could see. The mass seemed a collection of tumors, lumpy and somewhat repulsive, though neat, clean, silvery skin covered them, and each one sported a tiny set of wings. She descended to the surface, and the water seemed to move away from her, forming a bubble as she dipped below the level of the water.

"Aisling? Is that really you?" He asked, his voice unhampered by the water or the mask.

She nodded, smiling. "Yeah." She looked at her hand, then back up the tendril of flesh that reached back up into the sky. "I usually don't use the neutral like this, just to project whatever subconscious comes up. I look weird."

He cocked his head to the side. "Yeah. You do. Still you, though."

She laughed, the sound breaking into something digital. "Such a charmer." She said, still smiling. "Weird to see you talking though. Sounds just like you do in your head, but I bet the computer is translating something, because you're speaking better." She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "What did you change in here? I had to come in and deal with the controls, but looks like you made this place, so I don't know how to interact."

"A tank. Down there." He pointed behind himself and down the length of the tether.

She looked past him. "I'm not surprised that you did scuba." She said with a bland stare. "Wanna change it back?"

"I can't get to the tank. It keeps moving." He said, looking at the bubble that had formed in the water around her, as if even the water hesitated to let her enter this calm place, but why? She lowered further, and reached out toward where he pointed. Her arm extended beyond its reach, changing shape and stretching into a sort of wing. The first feather pricked the surface, breaking surface tension. The bubble collapsed around her, encasing her in water. The tether to the sky severed, and retracted back into the clear blue. The quick retreat of what had been so solidly attached yanked her backward and tumbled her in the water, but before she'd righted herself, another tether shot up from the deep. This one metallic and wired. It connected to her back, and the skin seemed to reach out to it, tiny feathers wrapping themselves around the bare metal and drawing her down. A deep bass note echoed from below, and then a jolt of electricity shot up the wire, charging the water.

Helden felt the charge building, stretching his skin tighter, and constricting his lungs, and then something broke. A crack like thunder, and all went dark.

Aisling felt the jolt move through her, and saw Helden react, or rather, saw him go limp. She wasn't sure whether he'd just dumped out, or worse. The water offered little resistance as she moved toward him, catching him easily. His body felt hot, which was unusual, because generally, the hunters kept with the ambient temperature. Granted, none of that applied to this digital sea they were now in. She had a vague connection to the computer, so some of the commands were available, and actually reacting since Helden had relinquished control over this particular Neutral. She forced the disconnect protocol for Helden, and the sky seemed to open up above the water. Hooking long arms around him, she moved upward, but about two meters from the surface, stopped short. Her tether was at its limit, and she couldn't get loose of it. Try as she might, part of her body was just holding on too tight. She tried to start up the disconnect protocol for herself, but only got errors for her trouble.

A very sterile, and default display of the exit prompt descended from the sky, little more than an organic black blob of code reaching down. Her body shifted as she strained to reach it, holding out what equated to Helden's consciousness out to it. It realized the target of the disconnect, and met her at the extent of her reach, covering him and retreating into the sky.

The sky closed to the perfect halcyon blue of Helden's construction. Another bass note echoed from below, followed quickly by the rushing bubbles of the air that had been contained in the scuba tank he'd mentioned. Her tether yanked suddenly, pulling her down, and the water quickly became insubstantial. The blue faded to charcoal black smoke, and she was falling briefly until she landed heavily in the burning ruins of a home. The building style was rustic, mostly mud, thatch and precious little wood. The fires licked all around her, neither touching her, nor burning her. She recognized the layout. Every table. Every chair. Every wall. She bolted through the rooms, laboring against the heavy restriction of the wired tether as it snagged on every corner and wall. She finally made it to a charred and crumbling cradle, not hesitating to reach into the flames and retrieve the small, blackened and lifeless body. Saying nothing, and fighting back the panic rising in her gut, she simply sank to the floor amid the flames, holding the body and rocking.

a/n Right then, for those that wondered about her diving rig and all its ports and whatever..

D'ohgod… long descriptions are long, and… Aisling's mind is warped deep down.


	2. Chapter 2

a/n Complete Story. Random aside inspired by Thrice's Digital Sea. Hunters are Valve's. Any with names are mine. Aisling is mine. I curse Camarlengo from DeviantArt.

Chapter 2

The indicator light on the top halo of Helden's rig went dark, and Rai stood up. "Looks like she got him." He said, though to anyone not suffering an infection similar to that of the hunters, his words sounded like little more than low, intermittent growls moving in and out of the auditory range of human hearing, and to anyone who tried to find a pattern in the sounds, there would be none. The words were in the thoughts, not in the sounds, and to one another, the decline of their articulation was lost.

Chad was on his feet as well. "So why isn't he awake?"

"Got me." Rai jerked his head toward Aisling. "Why isn't she awake? She's used to this thing."

"Give her time." Chad said uncertainly.

"Ten minutes." Rai said flatly while he yanked the connections from Helden's head and back. "This doesn't feel right."

"She uses the computer all the time." Chad said slowly.

"She moves when she uses it." Rai tossed the connections aside and motioned to Aisling's still body dangling from the connection array.

Chad frowned, watching her a moment. Rai was right. Usually when she used the computer she twitched endlessly. As odd as it looked, seeing her dead still was even more disconcerting. He hung his head, and sank back down on the bed, unable to block the sounds of the surrounding room so as not to see her again. He fidgeted with the piece of eden, hearing the rise and fall of the constant, high, keen it made. When there were a lot of them together, the sound multiplied until it almost blocked out all others sounds. Aisling never seemed to hear it, and his ears usually ended up ringing from all of them. This one let her understand him better, so he was okay with the noise it made.

Time ticked by quickly, and at length, Rai stood up again. "I'm pulling her out."

"What? No! She says never do that." Chad said.

"She would be out by now if she could, wouldn't she? She said she was just getting Helden." Rai said, nudging Helden with one foot. Helden's arm finally shifted, and he shifted bonelessly onto his side in the floor.

"Still. Give her time. Or ask her." He said, standing up and holding out the piece of Eden.

"You know how to use that?" Rai asked incredulously.

"No, not exactly." Chad said, looking at it from a few angles and turning it over in his hands. "But she can. She hears us when she has it." He said, moving over to Aisling and taking one of her dangling hands.

"I don't think that's such a good idea." Rai said, feeling apprehension well up inside his gut. "She said-" But the sentence wasn't to be finished. Chad had already placed the relic in her hand. Her body went suddenly rigid, snatching the piece of eden to her chest and curling up around it, dangling by the supports of the rig.

Instantly, a wave of heat and screams washed over their minds. Water began to flow outward from the computer rig, immediately flooding the room to knee level. Rai and Chad both staggered back from it. Rai heard the sound of a blow headed his way, and ducked under the punch, countering quickly and staggering when he met no resistance. There was the sound of another attack, which he also dodged, and backpedaled toward the door, needing to be out of this enclosed place quickly. Screams continued in his mind. Aisling's screams, twisting and rising on the air. He couldn't block it out. The piece of eden was shrieking as well, drowning out most of the surroundings. He staggered for the door, hearing Chad's unintelligible cries of growing frustration and anger. The sound was echoed outside, as everyone else seemed able to hear it, and feel the overflow of Aisling's mind from the machine. He ducked the blows that never seemed to connect, until he collided with the hard wood of the door as it swung open inward. He grabbed the edge to maneuver around, only to be shoved roughly aside. He lost his feet and fell beneath the flow of water.

Nole heard the cries from where he'd sequestered himself away from the rest of them. They'd tried to speak with him. He'd ignored them. He couldn't leave though, and had to stay close. God strike him down if he tried to go back. There was nothing to go back to. One of his kids was likely already dead, the other lost to the systems of the people. The people that damned him for what he was now. Something less than human, but not a complete monstrosity anymore. He mulled it for the umpteenth time that day before trying to school his mind blank again. A much easier task than he remembered it being, not that he remembered too much else before the infection. Just his kids. And his wife. He spun the wedding band on his finger. Still wearing it. How was Trudie anyway? A high keen came from the house. One of those stupid things the girl used. Sounded louder than it should. Then heat washed over him, and the trees crumbled to dust, quickly replaced by towering buildings on all sides. Bushes became cars. The soft pine floor became hard, unyielding pavement.

A cry came from down the street. A girl, terrified. In pain. It had to be his daughter. Not dead after all. Immediately, Nole broke into a run in that direction, battering aside all the other infected he saw. They wouldn't get his daughter after all. He'd been able to get DT clear of this mess, had AK really been able to hang on long enough for him to come back? He hoped against hope and prayed to God, Jesus, Mary and every other saint he could think of that it could be the case. His hope didn't hold so strong as the qualities of the screams changed. They splintered, in an odd halted, digital manner, but continued nonetheless. He tore through the front doors of the lobby in their apartment building. Her cries were close. An infected individual blocked the door somewhat ineffectively. He threw them aside, and followed the sound, finding AK tangled up in the debris of a crumbled wall. She didn't seem to be bleeding, though she was thrashing against the obstacles. Her pale, round face was terrified, and framed by the halo of brown hair escaping her braids. There were two more of the infected here, though they were already down, and hardly moving. He had a small swell of pride that she'd handled herself so well thus far, but pushed that aside and tried to get her loose. He wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged, but something was stuck to her back, wrapped around her neck. He realized it was part of another infected. The ones that snagged people with their tongues. He clawed at the tongue, and immediately, something started hissing and whining. He continued to claw at her attacker, until it released her. He staggered back as she suddenly pulled free, tripping over one of the other infected and falling flat on his back, shifting quickly to keep AK's head from connecting with the floor. His did, however, and stars danced across his mind for a moment.

The screaming stopped. The noise stopped. All was silent but for a low hum filled the room. He saw that he was again inside the strangely styled house of the girl that had tried so hard to speak with him. How did he get here so quickly? Nole blinked empty eyes, feeling the weight of AK on his chest. She was breathing, and that was good. Something shifted, and he felt AK pick herself up. "AK, are you crazy? I told you to stay put." He said aloud while signing the same sentiments. He knew she wouldn't be able to understand his speaking now, but she would remember the sign language. They used it for DT's sake, though they both could hear.

"This ain't AK, pal. Sorry." A decidedly male and even infected voice of mind said. Nole's head shot up, and he recognized the other hunter immediately. The stupid one that was always throwing himself off trees or the roof, or rocks, or setting things on fire.

"What the hell?" Nole hissed. "AK was just right here." He snarled as he sat up, grabbing the girl's face and moving the hair aside so the sounds could actually hit it. His face went slack, and he dropped his hands to his side. It wasn't AK after all, but he could've sworn it was. Sworn he'd just seen her.

"Sorry. She was just in the computer. I think it messed her up good. Got me, I know. Jeez, my head." The other hunter said, rubbing his head and picking the girl up completely off the floor with his free arm. Nole stood up, brushing himself off. The other hunter placed her on the bed before turning back to him, waiting for something. Nole slowly raised a hand and shook his finger at him, pointing and chuckling ruefully. The other hunter just stood there, hearing the forced humor in the laugh. The sting. Nole saw his face pull into a frown. "I'm really sorry, man." He said again.

"You know what?" Nole snapped. "Fuck you. Fuck you and that crazy bitch too." He snarled, turning on his heel and shoving the other hunter that had entered the room behind him out of the way and leaving again.

Rai staggered into the counter, unsteady on his feet with his ears still ringing. "What the hell was that?"

Helden shrugged. "I dunno. Most he's said. Ever."

"Who's AK?" Rai asked, moving past the bed and giving Chad a shake.

"I dunno." Helden said again. "Some girl. What's wrong with you guys? Did I miss a party or something?"

"No." Rai grumbled. "You missed Chad breaking Aisling, the computer and that stupid noisemaker of hers."

Two days passed, and Aisling did little more than breathe. Helden and Rai came and went, checking in on her. Helden's visits were shorter, as he got bored of the quiet room quickly. The computer had long since ceased its humming, and the room was quiet enough to nearly be a void to their biosonar. Chad didn't like the sensation of blindness, but he wouldn't leave Aisling, because sure as the world, as soon as he did, she would wake up, but she never seemed to even shift.

Late in the evening, movement cast enough sound into the room to herald the coming of visitors again. Chad looked up at them. Rai, Helden and Brent. "No change?" Rai asked. Chad shook his head. Rai frowned. "I'm just going to snap her neck. She'll wake up faster that way."

"What? NO!" Chad said, maneuvering himself between Aisling and the others. "She'll come around."

"Or we could let Helden do it. He's an old pro." Brent said with a smirk.

"Hey, not cool. It was an accident." Helden grumbled, elbowing Brent.

Brent stifled a laugh. "How do you accidentally break someone's neck?"

"I didn't.." Helden grumbled, frowning. "The thermite was the accident." Chad snarled at them both, not liking to hear this come up again.

"Varner says she's not going to last much longer without water." Rai said. "Normal people don't last as long without it as we do. You want to risk drowning her by pouring water on her face?"

"No." Chad admitted, not warming up to the idea. Rai made a move to approach, and Chad sidestepped into the way. "But I can't let you hurt her."

"She can't feel anything. If she was going to wake up, she would've done it by now. Look how fast he came around, and he was in longer than she was." Rai said, jerking his thumb at Helden, who was still sulking at the reminder of the thermite incident. Chad didn't move, and Rai took a step back, folding his arms. "Fine. Brent, Helden. Distraction."

"Right." "Okay." They said in overeager stereo, and bolted around Rai, tackling Chad. Helden took him at the shoulders, and Brent knocked his legs out from under him. They all went down in a heap. Rai sidestepped the flailing mass of claws and snarls.

Chad got a few good swipes in before Helden managed to pin his arms in some bastardized arm bar, so he rocked his feet beneath them a bare second before Brent swept his feet out from under him again. The combined weight of Chad and Helden came down on Brent, pinning him to the floor. He snarled as much as his limited breathing would allow and struggled to get them shifted, but Chad was flailing his best against them, and had put a knee in Brent's nose for his trouble. They all heard the audible snap, and the fight went out of all of them, leaving them in stupefied, disbelieving stillness. Helden released Chad's arms, smacking him on the shoulder in some sort of motion of comfort. "Sorry, man." He said before slinking out of the room under a cloud of guilt.

Brent stood and offered him a hand. "Come on, get something to eat. I think Macy killed something. Might be fun to see if we can get it away from him." Chad took the offered hand reluctantly before casting a cold glare toward Rai, who didn't exactly look pleased with himself.

"Yeah. I guess I've got a couple days before she comes around anyway." He sighed.

Rai looked back at the body. She was still clean. Paler than usual. He couldn't shake the nagging déjà vu that he refused to acknowledge. At least this time she didn't suffer.

Aisling snapped awake, the fires receding from her mind, the body disappearing from her arms, but she was wrapped up in arms herself. "Callum?" She asked immediately, and looked up to see who held her hostage. A thin face with a light smile looked down at her. Ashen gray skin. Empty eyes. She dropped her eyes again to his shoulder, a shudder of a sob going through her. The fire had been so real, but that fire had burned out so long ago, taking Callum and Coilin with it. Technically, it had taken her also, but she'd been the only one to reset into a fresh body, identical to what had burned to ash. Inexplicably. An ability she could share, but she didn't learn that until years later, and even that was very limited. Maybe only one other. She'd tried on two, but that had blown up in her face, and she didn't want to return to that memory either.

The grip tightened around her, and she felt her current guardian rest his cheek against her head. For now. She told herself. For now, she'd let him. Her sobs choked off into silent tears, as she closed her eyes, forcing the past from her mind. Not looking forward to the future. Aware of the present, and the slightly chilled body around her. Her mind went to the ocean. Halcyon blue skies, clear water. Nothing else. Her mind sank beneath the sound of a song hummed softly, originating as a growl and reverberating around in his chest until the sound became something more sickly sweet to her ears.

At least an hour passed before he shifted again, hazing her out of the sea of apathy and forgetfulness in which she'd taken a dip. She emerged again, somewhat renewed and firmly in the present. She pushed herself up to sit, breaking loose from Chad and turning to look back at him. He looked at her neutrally, not really saying anything with his expression. She searched herself for the piece of eden, coming up empty handed. Instead, she stood and moved to her diving rig, inspecting it as she didn't remember disconnecting from it. The connection array was locked down, and the interface band was extended forward. Looked like she didn't disconnect from it. Looked more like she'd been physically yanked out of it. She sighed, and inspected to see how bad the damage was, cursing the Neutral interface to high heaven. Now she remembered why she never used it. Her subconscious always locked it up. "What on Earth?" She said, seeing clawmarks raked down the side of the brace and the connection array's support. "What happened?" She asked again, turning to Chad, who only shrugged. She looked around on the floor, seeing the familiar glint of gold and snatched the piece of eden off the floor and hooked it onto her belt. It flared briefly, putting static in her head, before fading to the normal glow. She looked back at Chad.

_Don't know. Helden came out. You stay. I try to talk._ He motioned to the piece of eden as he thought it. _Then noise. Water. Lots of hurt. I wake up, you out. Not move. Barely breathe._

"You gave me the piece of eden while I was diving?" She asked in complete disbelief.

He nodded. _Bad idea._

"Ha. To put it mildly." She said with the flat, emotionless laugh. "Hurt your head didn't it?" He nodded again, and she turned back to the rig, checking that the damage was just hyperextension of the joints and nothing too serious. "Who pulled me out?"

_Don't know._

"Who else was here?"

_Rai. Helden._ She felt a bit of bitterness in his tone when he named them, but didn't ask.

She was going to need some tools, but nothing for wiring, and for that she was thankful. She turned and headed for the door, noting the general disheveled state of the counter by the door, and the broken front door as she stepped outside. It was pitch dark outside, likely overcast or a new moon. She leaned toward the latter, since it was far too warm for overcast.

_Need help?_ Chad asked from the doorway behind her. She hadn't heard him follow, but she was used to being snuck up on. Most of the hunters didn't make much noise when they moved if there was enough other noise around for them to see.

"No. I know the way. Just wait here and make sure nothing gets inside." She said, moving off the well traveled path toward the garage. She made it just outside of the range of what little light filtered through the windows when a heavy thud heralded someone's drop out of a tree. She didn't stop walking, and heard footsteps fall into pace with hers. The sound mingled with the random animal calls of the night, and the gentle rustle of the trees. She wondered if those soft sounds were really enough for the hunters to be able to see.

_You better?_ It was a venturing question, perhaps a little apprehensive. Apparently her death hadn't been at the hands of the computer after all.

"Yeah. Helden, did you have to kill me again?" She turned her head in the direction of the footsteps, hardly seeing a darker shadow among the dark of the woods.

_No. Rai did. I helped._ The tone turned into solid regret. _Sorry._

She laughed. "Helped? I know it can't be that hard."

He breathed in a rhythm that she interpreted as a laugh. _No. You die easy. Chad fights hard._

She frowned. So that was what was wrong with Chad. No surprise, especially if he'd been there. "Did the piece of eden get a hold of you too, or did you see who pulled me out?"

_No eden. I woke and Nole screaming at you._

"Nole?" She said. "Are you sure?"

_Call you AK? Who's AK?_ He asked, and she stopped dead in her tracks. _What? Something wrong?_

"Aw, Nole…" She sighed, remembering the scrap of a note she'd found in his pocket when she'd first found him. He was still unstable on the Green Flu and sedated with some heavy tranquilizers. She'd followed the address, finding little more than a trashed apartment and a dead girl. Didn't even survive the virus long enough to mutate. That must've been AK. Helden had stopped also, and she imagined was staring at her. "AK was his daughter. God, the fact that he remembers her. Jeez. I have to find DT."

_DT?_ Helden echoed, falling into step with her when she started walking again.

"His other kid. That one lived. He got DT to an evacuation before the infection got to him." Aisling said as she squinted through the trees in hopes of seeing some indication of the garage. Helden grumbled aloud, and she turned back toward the sound. "What?"

_I think remember DT. Kid not sick. I follow kid. Another hunter attacked me. Nole?_ He was thoughtful as he recounted, apparently trying to draw the memories out of the haze of the infection. _Then people with guns. I fight, but stuff blow up, and kid is gone. So is hunter._

"Really?" She asked, actually quite interested that any of the hunters had crossed paths before she'd drugged them and dragged them out of Denver. "You scrapped with Nole over his kid? No wonder you lost."

He breathed a laugh again. _Yeah. Dad fights hard._

She turned away. "Okay. I can't find the garage. Where's the door?" From the darkness, he caught her by the elbow and steered her that direction.

a/n Yeah.. Helden's mention here, it's a comic I'm working on. Nole's grand adventure to save DT. It's called Anything. No big spoiler that DT lived, right? Even I'm not that depressing. However, now, you get to look forward to the full version of Helden's vague recollection.


	3. Chapter 3

a/n Complete Story. Random aside inspired by Thrice's Digital Sea. Hunters are Valve's. Any with names are mine. Aisling is mine. I curse Camarlengo from DeviantArt.

Chapter 3

She disconnected from the computer, finding Chad and Helden both staring at her. "What? Jeez. It works. I've been using it a week now and nothing wrong." She picked up the piece of eden from the side strut. Despite the help of the mind reading, there was no explanation behind those bland looks aside from them not believing her. "Fine, whatever. Where's Nole?"

They both shrugged, but Helden was the one to answer. _Never see Nole._

"Great." She rolled her eyes and sighed before heading out into the living room and fishing out yet another relic. She closed her eyes and expanded her awareness, letting the relic throw her senses wide. Wider than the house. Out into the woods. She could pick out the animals and hunters alike in the woods. Nole was about almost four kilometers away. North. A sharp poke in her head snapped her senses back inside her skull. "Ow. What?" She asked irritably, swiveling her head around to see the dark green of Helden's hoodie.

_That loud._ He said, pointing to the piece of eden.

"And you had to poke me for that?" She asked, rubbing her head. "Jeez, you were using claws and everything!"

_Hurt you like that hurts me._ He said, making a snide face at her.

"Fine. Fine. I won't use it unless I have to. Want to help me go find Nole?" She asked, standing up, still rubbing the back of her head.

Helden didn't respond right away, instead calling up the memories of how fiercely Nole fought before. _Yeah. I help._

_Me too._ Chad called from the other room.

"I figured that was a given." Aisling said more loudly.

She'd only walked a half a kilometer before being scooped up, tossed on Chad's back, and dragged along at the typical breakneck hunter running speed. The run quickly became a game for Chad and Helden, who would springboard off of trees for a little height to clear the other's head. She'd done her best to strangle Chad, which was hardly effective, but made her feel a little more secure that she wasn't going to get dropped. They hardly did this for twenty minutes before they slowed to a more reasonable speed, then a walk, at which point, Aisling was put back on the ground. "I guess we're here then." She said, and a loud growl, though still distant, answered her. "Hey, Nole, is that you?" The growl intensified, and she followed the sound, bringing him into range of the mind reading relic, and filling her head with curses, hatred, small tugging undertones of loss and misery, and a mantra of Latin. Hail Marys. "Come on, Nole. I just want to talk. Don't pounce me or anything." The curses silenced, but the latin didn't, and the growls became a bit more gutteral. She came around the edge of a rock outcropping, finding him sitting against the opposite side of the rock wall, glaring daggers at her whether he had eyes or not. The gray hoodie he wore was tattered and stained with layers of blood and mud. She hadn't been able to find him before now to get him cleaned up or get some new clothes for him. His brown hair had gotten long and ratty, and he smeared it back out of his face and snarled at her. "Come on, don't be like that." She said. The Latin ground to a halt on the last 'Amen', leaving her mind in a moment of silence but for the two beacons of curiosity and apprehension behind her.

Still growling, his mind spoke again, this time accompanied by emphatic sign language. _Fuck you, bitch. You do this to me. You made me this. Godforsaken virus. Can I die now? I saw other guy. Took three in chest and still alive! Unless you have shotgun for my head, piss off._

She stared blandly into his snarl, and equally hateful verbal assault. "You still speak sign language?" He flipped her off. "I guess I'll have to brush up on mine so we can chat without this." She said, swatting the piece of eden dangling off her hip. He hadn't moved from his current sign. She sighed, knowing there was going to be little reasoning with him. There was little to do but get straight to business. "I found DT." She said flatly. He went completely silent, his face slack, his hands dropping into his lap. "I can show you where, but we can't get there now. The evacuation has everybody off the mainland."

Nole was already on his feet, all aggression gone from his stance, replaced by desperation he didn't bother to try to conceal. _Where?_

"Come on." She said, turning to head back and nearly running into Helden and Chad, who'd managed to sneak up on her again while keeping behind the rocks. Only now, they weren't the only two. Another hunter had joined. One in yellow. Taller and apparently cutting up with Helden. "Hey Granger. What brings you?"

_His loud._ Granger said, pointing at Nole, who only flipped him off.

"Well, come on. Join the party. I'm going back to the house."

_Need carry? You run slow._ Granger offered.

"Jeez guys! Leave me alone about how fast I run!" She said, throwing her arms up. Chad hoisted her by the back of her belt and tossed her at Granger, who tossed her over one shoulder, and amid her stream of griping and fussing, headed back toward the house.

"You're okay with this?" Aisling said, adjusting the top halo of the epidermal diving rig on Nole's head, not exactly sure if it would work through the matted mess of his hair. She'd moved it as much as she could to get a decent connection, though the screen still gave her warnings.

_Fine._ He signed at her, and said mentally. _I work computers before sick. I think._ Helden coughed loudly, but nobody really acknowledged the noise.

"Really?" Aisling said, impressed at that. "You remember a lot."

He sighed. _More than I want._ He let his hands drop into his lap after signing it.

"I'm sorry." She said. "I don't think it's such a good idea to put you in the Neutral. I'll put you in the prompt. I can show you the pictures and videos from the outside terminal, or do you want me in there too?"

_Careful which pick. She less human than us in there._ Helden said, coughing again through the low growls he was currently making.

Aisling's head swiveled slowly around, completely separate from her body, a cold glare of incredulity on her face. "I. Can. Hear. You."

He took a solid step back. _Smell something burning? I go check._ He said before bolting.

She turned back to Nole, who'd leaned back against the wall beside her larger diving rig. "Okay, I'll just come in there too. It's easier to navigate in a dive anyway." She said, forcing a smile and understanding a bit of why he was always so scarce before.

A bare minute later, she joined him in the senseless blackness of the prompt. He was standing on the nothingness, looking around calmly, wearing what appeared to be dressier clothes than the tattered mess he wore outside of the computer. He had his eyes again, and they were hazel, and uncomfortably perceptive. His hair was considerably shorter, and much better kept. As she approached, he gave her an odd look, and she looked down at herself again. She had the same disproportionate body as before, silver skin up to her knees and elbows, normal colored flesh beyond that, if not a little pale. Not a stitch of clothing and the odd, lumpy, winged flesh tether that led off into the darkness. "Helden was right. Is this how you see yourself?" Nole asked, starting to sign the thoughts before hearing his voice and instead fidgeting with the ring he wore.

She shrugged. "I never looked at myself before in here. Never had anybody else in on the same computer."

"It is what it is. You have pictures?" He said, slipping his hands back into his pants pockets, apparently unaffected by his new acquisition of a regular voice and eyes.

"Yeah. DT's on a boat in the gulf." She said, pulling up pictures into the air in front of them, stretched large as posters. They all contained a wild eyed and frustrated child with messy brown hair only barely cooperating with the personnel trying to help. Few of them could speak sign language, as evidenced by the videos and the small writing pad the child carried in most of the pictures. "I think I can pull some strings for relocation to be back in Denver. Maybe you can drop in for a visit."

"Think that's a good idea?" Nole asked with a sigh, though he wore a sad smile on his face.

"I think DT deserves an explanation." Aisling said, folding her arms, still pulling up pictures and files of testing and typing concerning the child's apparent immunity to the virus. "I know you'd do anything to help, and every kid should know that dad still cares."

His smile tugged into irony. "I know. When can I go?"

She closed her eyes, her body becoming transparent a moment as a gold glow surrounded her. It faded, and she looked at him again. "Not until July."

"What month is it?" He asked, realizing he'd lost all grasp of time.

"March." She said with an apologetic grimace.

"It's fine. I've waited this long." He said, still looking at the wall of pictures.

"Yeah." She said awkwardly. "Well, that's what I wanted to show you. Didn't have a way to show pictures with you not seeing the same way. You want out now?"

"In a minute. It's been a while. Jesus, look how big DT got." Nole said, the smile returning.

Aisling frowned, tears threatening. He was right. It was terrible of her to keep him stuck like this. Trapped by the Blacklight virus in whatever form the Green Flu had mutated him. Unable to grow. Unable to change. Unable to die, it seemed. She could sympathize with that last aspect. Rubbing her arms against a sudden digital chill, she called up the exit protocol for herself, and for him. He could step into his when he was ready. She slipped into her own, leaving him to his thoughts.

Opening her eyes to the small room again, an ashen face with a broad grin filled her vision. "God!" She instinctively smacked the hunter away. "Don't do that!" The machine fired up a series of whines to release the wiring from her back. Once she was on the floor again, the hunter was back, dropping the piece of eden in her hands.

_..next? I want play again!_ Helden's eager requests filled her head immediately.

She swatted him away again, ignoring the flowing stream of requests. "Maybe. I need to block you from the controls on the Neutral. And Nole's not done yet."

He scooped her up in a crushing hug as if she'd agreed. _AWESOME!_

FFFF! This was a random aside! Now it's a complete story. Yay.

Sorry this chapter is so short, the whole thing was one file, but was broken up for my sanity at logical breaking points. I'm really surprised I didn't have more snarky comments to make than this.

I guess sorry also that it doesn't really have a hard stop ending, but that is all for the Neutral.


End file.
